Luke was excited. He checked in with the owner, donned his work apron, grabbed a broom and a rag, and started getting his work done more enthusiastically than ever. He was honestly more excited for blue and purple keys, than their leader. Just meeting a Unique Key would be pretty meaningless. But the others?

Red and a few blue keys were among regular clientele of Inn’teresting, and provided him with wealth of invaluable information.

A purple key would be even better. When red are seasoned explorers, and blue can boast to be veterans, a purple key is a true master of venturing deeper, farther and higher. Even observing how they carried themselves could be a good way to improve.

How do they carry their weapons and gear? How are their boots tied? What about their valuables? Their diet?

There were so many lessons if you were attentive enough.

And then there was a potential of a Unique Key coming. Lukas wasn’t sure what could be learned from one of those. If the stories were true, they weren’t bound by common sense, more like loosely guided by it.

You don’t learn foraging from someone who can chug down poison and appreciate the taste.

And Lukas was pretty sure just staring at Forests’ Chases’ Key won’t be helping him get his own.

I mean, how would that even work?

………………………………….

“Okay, we should get to one of the tunnels leading to south-eastern town-leg in two hours or so.” Announced Mark aloud.

You could expect everyone to visibly relax, but that wasn’t the case. Vast majority of people present were adults. And every adult knows, that things can go to very bad places once you think everything is alright and over.

But then again, everything was pretty calm. Not the ‘apex predator takes a stroll nearby’.

Just calm. Birds were singing, flowers weren’t blooming because it was too late for that, and even our dizzy companions stopped experiencing symptoms of maelodor overdose.

Then the Krrrt’o meter stopped making noises whatsoever.

Mr. Dalton and his men looked visibly pleased by the development. “We must be getting close enough to town that its’ maelodor immunity started affecting our surroundings.” And started relaxing.

The explorers however, didn’t look relaxed at all. Quite the contrary, they started nervously looking around, and finally, stopped the caravan.

“All right people, there might be a storm coming and we might not get to ‘Promise’ before it blows. Let’s try to get to the town as fast as we can, but only in orderly fashion. We will be choosing to travel along the paths with low altitude, so that there is no place we can fall off of once the storm hits!” Commanded Mark.

Ah, so it was calm before the storm.

“Hey, Mel, what’s the storm?” Ed had a feeling it wasn’t about a regular rain and thunder.

“Just what it sounds like. A lot of maelodor, very little safety. A storm here will probably make you feel drunk.”

Mr. Dalton asked Mark the same question as the one Linden asked Mel.

“You will simultaneously feel like you just drank a bottle of moonshine on an empty stomach, and like it’s the next day, and you have a killer hangover.” “Let’s get somewhere low, and lay down on the ground so that we can’t fall of a cliff or something.” Replied the older explorer.

No one liked what they were hearing.

Just when They arrived at a spot that seemed safe enough, the Krrrt’o meter started making noises like a chihuahua in a murderous mood. (So like a normal Chihuahua)

Both explorers popped something into their mouths, and sat on the ground, weapons ready.

“what’s with the weapons?” Asked one of the coachmen.

“Some nasty critters might think us a perfect meal if we just lay down like that. But we have some tolerance, so we’ll try to deter anything that gets too close.” Replied the owner of a pistol, Mel.

Hearing that, members of merchant caravan started readying their own weapons, mainly those poor blunderbusses.

But they couldn’t finish doing that as the storm hit.

Yup, it was not a good experience. It really did feel like a moonshine, but it seemed to be a shitty brew, or such was Lindens’ impression.

The feeling of spinning, the light headedness, the pain, the urge to vomit, and then on top of that, the damn canine like shits eyeing them like they were appetizing somehow.

Wait, what?!

Linden jolted himself up. Two explorers already shot their guns, but it seemed like despite their resistance to maelodor, the storm got to them enough to make them miss.

(Or maybe it was the fault of those poacher firearms of questionable quality. Questionable in a sense that any gunsmith would start questioning their sanity after seeing those things.)

Linden was the only one left standing, he realized, and he felt responsible.

It wasn’t often Ed bragged about this, (and he might never get to brag about this again) but he was a special existence.

A former college student of Slavic descent.

“A bottle of moonshine on an empty stomach!? You mean breakfast?!” He squeaked roared, making the damned things stop.

Linden wasn’t actually sure whether those were murisee, like earlier, or something different. He felt a little too drunk to see properly, and much too drunk to care.

He swayed over to one of the fallen coachmen and grabbed his blunderbuss.

‘I really hope this is loaded properly’ Was his last thought before he fired at one of the predators before him.

It was, in fact, loaded properly. With a heavy charge of powder and lead, the low, booming sound of black powder firearm made Eds’ ears hear nothing but ringing, and a cloud of smoke obscured his vision.

Recoil and sickness finally made him fall over. Fortunately, in the process, he staggered into another blunderbuss. He saw the animals visibly hesitating whether to retreat, or keep attacking.

Their dilemma was solved by another shot by Linden. The load seemed to be a bit lighter judging by the amount of smoke, but Ed committed a mistake that caused him to yelp in pain.

On second shot, He supported his back and the right shoulder on a wagon.

Normally, recoil is mitigated through movement. A gun fires, and pushes (or punches) back. A human behind the gun is to move with it, absorbing the force.

But that’s a bit difficult when backwards movement is prevented. Ever been hit with a sledgehammer? That’s what it feels like. And that’s how Linden felt like at the moment.

If the sorry excuses for dogs didn’t hightail out of there, there would be human casualties, because there was no way He was getting up even one more time.

If we omit all the colorful slurs for prostitutes, and a possibly racist remark, Linden chose to remain silent, as he started slowly drifting off to half-sleep.

Once the smoke cleared, in his not entirely conscious state, He saw something… curious. The air flowed weirdly, in a way. It swirled, and flowed into complicated patterns. Swayed, like the wind itself was a bit tipsy.

Even while being hammered like an old uncle on a wedding, Ed had enough presence of mind to chalk it up to his, well… lack of presence of mind.

And to that consciousness he was losing.

…………………………………………………….

Mark was kind of exhausted. They were expecting a storm, but not something like this. Even with the inhibitors, Mel was barely conscious, and Mark himself only managed to nail one of the humalainen, which keeled over after a minute or so after it was shot.

And that didn’t even drive the pack off. A tough winter was coming if they were this determined to finish the hunt.

They would need to pick themselves up, dress the game they involuntarily hunted, and continue to move towards the town. Luckily it was very close. Mark wanted to get some rest after they almost died.

He would get himself a better gun. The one he currently had was better than muzzleloaders, but still required the user to load everything separately, which was difficult under influence of something like a maelodor of yellow mountains.

He briefly entertained getting one of the more complicated firearms sold here and there, but they tended to have reliability issues.

A gun that fires thrice a minute every time, is better than one that fires 12 times, sometimes.

He would just have to buy himself a sidearm. And spend some hard earned money on practice.

Linden proved that to be the best way to get by. Mark recalled the sight of that kid nailing three Humalainen with two shots, from two different guns, neither of which he fired before. The confidence which He was shouldering them with, speed, and accuracy of shooting in this situation indicated someone well trained.

Mark wondered where that kid had the occasion of practicing his marksmanship to that point. Was he a child soldier, escaped from his unit?

But where from? Most surrounding countries condemned child soldiery.

A faraway place then? Maybe somewhere where a war just ended, or was still ongoing.

But it was none of Marks’ business. And no matter what kind of place Linden escaped from, he couldn’t possibly criticize a deserter for abandoning his duties, if that deserter was a ten year old.

It was actually kind of moving.

Mark was filled with determination to hug that poor kid, and tell him it’ll be alright.